


You're My 911

by pawnofkings



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: ANDREW LOCKS DOWN THE GOAL, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, and andrew finds that maybe he cares about exy when he can use it to destroy whoever hurts his mans, and blows his arms out, heh, jackals get fucked, neil gets hurt as per usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26219389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawnofkings/pseuds/pawnofkings
Summary: Neil wakes up in the woods, beaten and bruised. The first person he calls is Andrew.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 16
Kudos: 524





	You're My 911

Neil imagines that if most any other person were asked the question ‘are you okay?’ right now, their answer would be no. It’s the metric he’s taken to referencing when faced with the question: ‘what would a normal person say?’ Because really, he thinks he’s fine.

Or at least he’s had worse.

He doesn’t know how he got here, but at least he knows where  _ here _ is, thanks to the wonders of technology (Andrew’ll be glad to hear that the new phones he got them are coming in handy, Neil thinks as he looks at the little location indicator on Google Maps. He’ll be less glad to see the mess that’s been made of the thing, screen shattered beyond belief so that it’s almost impossible to read the screen).

He’s in a forest not ridiculously far from campus - perhaps a two-hour walk. He’s far from a road, though, and that again raises the question of how he got here in the first place, because he sure didn’t take this hike on purpose.

Neil already checked the date. It’s 5:42 AM on September 17th, a Thursday. The sun isn’t all the way up yet, leaving the forest in a sort of amber glow that mingles well with the mix of green and brown tree crowns overhead. He remembers the day before, up to and partly including the frat party Allison somehow managed to coax him into joining her for. He assumes whatever happened started there. Drugs must’ve been involved given the gaps in his memory.

And now he’s here. Surrounded by trees, on a bed of murky leaves, feeling a lot less than a million bucks. His ribs have taken a beating, he’s sure of that, given the constant ache and the searing pain that flares with every breath. He’s got a cut right beside one eye, but the blood has dried. His knees feel bruised, and worst of all is his ankle: it’s swollen to the point where it shouldn’t even be possible, twice as big as it ought to be, and Neil can hardly stand to look at it. He won’t be playing the game later tonight, that’s for sure.

Worse than the pain is the panic that grips him when he realizes that Allison might be in the same kind of trouble. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He’s been ignoring the missed calls and unopened messages until now, needing to assess the damage and get an idea of the situation before he freaked out completely. Now that he at least has that awareness, he carefully - so as not to slice his thumb open on the cracked glass - navigates his way to Andrew’s contact and presses the call button.

Andrew picks up before the first tone even finishes, but doesn’t say a word. 

“Andrew.”

“Where are you?” the man immediately demands. Neil can hear the panic in his voice and assumes he must be alone to let that much emotion slip through the mask.

“A forest. I… I checked Google Maps, it’s north of campus-”

“Share your location.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

Andrew curses silently on the other end, then says, “nevermind. Just screenshot it, okay? And send it to me.”

Neil moves his phone from his ear to do just that, watching as the image delivers agonisingly slowly before he gets back on the phone. “There. Is Allison okay?”

He can hear movement on Andrew’s end. “Fuck Allison”, Andrew growls. “Are you?”

Neil shakes his head, ignores the aching it causes, repeats, “is Allison okay?”

“She’s fine. Neil, I’m on my way, but I need - are you okay."

“I’m fine-” Andrew makes a disapproving sound, and Neil sighs. “I’m not dying. My ankle’s messed up and my ribs are - I don’t know how bad it is, but I can breathe.”

“Don’t move.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t. Move.  _ At all _ . Are you lying down.”

“I haven’t gotten up.”

“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

Neil picks up Nicky’s voice in the background, then Kevin’s. He thinks he hears Andrew call for Aaron - probably for medical assistance - but isn’t sure that’s a bridge Andrew is willing to cross quite yet (and besides, he’s pretty sure Aaron would rather leave him to die in this forest than help out, anyway).

Admittedly, he’s anxious. Neil thinks he’s alone, but he has no way of actually knowing that - the people who brought him here could be standing just out of sight, behind trees or crouching in the bushes, just watching. And it’s never completely silent in nature, so every rustling of leaves or snapping twig forces him to suppress a flinch. Neil hates feeling vulnerable, more than anything else, but he really doesn’t want to pop a lung open on a broken rib so he stays down. Still, it’s getting hard to handle.

“Andrew?” he asks, loathing the meekness of his voice.

“What?”

“Can you talk?”

“Hmm?”

The sound of a car starting is at least somewhat comforting.  _ Andrew is on his way. He’ll be here in twenty minutes _ . “I just… I’m kinda freaking out.”

“What do you want me to talk about.”

“Anything?”

Andrew sighs, and Neil sinks further into the ground. “Have you watched any old Exy games?”

“How old?” The sport is younger than its oldest players, so the word doesn’t mean much.

“Kevin forced me to watch a bunch of games from the early 2000s a while back. Not collegiate, but professional. The first professional American teams.”

“Oh”, Neil says. “No, I don’t think I’ve watched any.” He would’ve barely been born, then.

“There was this one game in 2003, between the Kansas City Badgers and the Boise Bobcats. Virtually irrelevant teams, now. The Badgers won 14-2.”

“Jesus.”

“The Badgers won first serve and scored within the first minute. The Bobcats had half-decent strikers but their backliners were awful, and the Badgers’ goalie stopped almost every attempt at goal. The strikers were too predictable.”

“How so?”

“They just kept firing at the goal. No feinting, no angled shots, nothing. Just one guy who actually seemed to give a shit, but he only played two quarters.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good strategy.”

“It wasn’t.”

Andrew starts to go over the game minute for minute, Neil dropping in some commentary every now and then. He finds Andrew’s criticisms more entertaining than the game itself. Neil eventually stops trying to picture it when his head begins to pound, mostly listening without understanding and chuckling at the occasional dig. He closes his eyes and allows himself to float, comforted by the sound of Andrew’s voice. It helps distract him from the sharp pain in his ankle and ribs.

“Say something”, Andrew eventually demands.

“Hmm?”

“It’s hard to tell if you’re conscious when you’re keeping your mouth shut.”

“I’m conscious.”

“Good to know.” The phone suddenly goes very quiet and Neil’s stomach drops for a second, worrying that Andrew hung up on him or that his phone died, before he realizes that Andrew has stopped the car when the sound of a door slamming shut sounds in the background. “Can you call out?”

“It would hurt.”

“Then don’t. Until I tell you to. We’re heading into the forest now, we’re not far.”

“Okay.”

Eventually, Andrew does ask him to call out, and Neil does so, as loud as he can. The sound of quick footsteps soon approaches, getting louder and louder, and then there he is.

“Andrew.”

Andrew doesn’t waste time talking, just assesses. “Yes or no?” he asks, and when Neil nods, he immediately begins poking and prodding. Neil hisses when Andrew grazes the skin just above his ankle and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth when Andrew carefully lays a fingertip on his ribs. He whimpers as Andrew finds bruises Neil wasn’t aware he had but now very much is, but there’s no nasty surprises.

The whole assessment only takes maybe half a minute, and by that point more footsteps sound out nearby. Kevin appears in his field of vision. “Nicky and Aaron are catching up.” Neil’s eyebrows furrow. 

“You didn’t all have to come”, he says.

“We didn’t know what we’d find when coming here”, Kevin says. Neil then notices the heavy, metal baseball bat swinging back and forth by his side, grasped tightly in one fist.

“Oh. You didn’t see anyone, did you? I don’t know if…”

“Who.” Andrew’s tone of voice is cold, but Neil knows that tone isn’t meant for him. It’s a thin veneer to mask the simmering rage inside at whoever did this.

Neil is about to open his mouth, saying he doesn’t know, when Nicky falls to his knees on Neil’s other side. “Are you all right? Oh my God, Neil, we were so scared, you didn’t come back last night, we all went out looking, then Allison comes back at like, four AM, freaked out, she could barely  _ speak _ -” Aaron drops a hand to his shoulder and Nicky’s jaw clicks shut.

“She doesn’t sound ‘fine’ to me”, Neil says, looking pointedly at Andrew. He must look absolutely dreadful because there’s something like guilt on Andrew’s face, flashing by just briefly.  _ You lied to me _ , Neil wants to say, but Andrew already heard that loud and clear.

“She’s fine. Physically. And I didn’t need you having a panic attack when you can barely breathe”, is Andrew’s justification. Neil notices the way his hands are clenching and his sudden hesitation to look Neil in the eye. If there’s something Andrew loathes, it’s dishonesty, and Neil guesses he probably doesn’t feel too good about it.

Feeling compelled to assure him, to get that uncomfortable doubt off of Andrew’s face, Neil says, “it’s fine, just don’t do it again. If I ask something, it’s because I want to know.” And Neil feels a lot like a hypocrite in that moment because he’s the Liar of the Year, every year, but continues. “Just… Is she hurt?”

“A bit banged up”, Nicky answers. “She says some guys in masks grabbed you two and pulled you into a car. You were unconscious but she wouldn’t stop yelling so they dumped her by the side of the road, like, in the middle of nowhere. Not that far from here, I think.”

Neil wishes the relief would soothe some of his fury, because it’s nestled uncomfortably in his chest and makes him want to bash someone’s skull in.

“She walked back”, Nicky says quietly. “She lost her phone, so she walked back, barefoot in a cocktail dress. She was talking about murder when we left - and I think she’ll do it if she gets the chance - but Renee is taking care of her.”

“Okay”, is all Neil says.

“Who”, Andrew repeats.

“I don’t know”, Neil admits. “I don’t even remember how I got here.”

“We think it was Breckenridge”, Nicky says quietly. Andrew’s head immediately snaps up and the look in his eyes is fiery, enough to burn a village to the ground. Neil winces on Nicky’s behalf.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that.”

Nicky grimaces. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t -”

“Why?” Kevin questions. “Why them?”

“It’s something Allison said. You weren’t there -” Nicky looks at Andrew, then follows the line of his arm down to Neil, who’s trying not to get distracted by the pleasant sensation of Andrew’s thumb rubbing circles into his hand “- Andrew, Aaron, and Kevin have been driving around looking since, like, one AM - but apparently one of the guys said something like ‘good luck winning tomorrow’, sounded real happy about it, so Matt and Dan started going through press videos of the Jackals until Allison said one of them sounded the exact same.”

“I’ll kill them”, Andrew vowed.

“Did someone tell the police?” Neil asks. He hasn’t considered getting them involved before - has never been of the mindset that doing so would be in any way helpful, and isn’t quite there now, either - but he knows the other Foxes might think differently. (But honestly - would they?)

“We were going to if you didn’t turn up before six, so impeccable timing”, Nicky explains. “We still should. This is, like - drugging, kidnapping, assault…” 

“The police are useless”, Aaron intones. Neil can see why he’d think that: after killing Drake in blatant self-defense and defense of his brother, the investigation and subsequent trial lasted almost a full year. In a case like this, where not even the people involved are a given… Neil’s never been one to seek help from the police, and he doesn’t think now will be when he starts.

“We need to beat them on the court”, Neil says. “That’s clearly what they’re worried about, if they’re going this far. We do that, then we consider calling the police.”

“You’re not playing, idiot.”

Neil looks at Andrew, unimpressed. “Obviously. But everyone else is - maybe not Allison.”

“Ooh, Allison will be playing”, Aaron says. “I’ve never seen her that angry before. I think she’ll break one of their arms by the end of it.”

“Sounds good to me”, Kevin says blankly, then gestures down at Neil. “Should probably get going.”

It’s a rough process - especially the part where Aaron takes his turn to poke and prod, because he’s the only one with any medical training (apparently, surviving bullet wounds, being thrown out of a moving car, and a diverse array of stab wounds doesn’t qualify you as an expert, though Neil thinks it should count for something) (this part of it is almost balanced out by the fact that he gets to be carried bridal style by Andrew the whole way back to the car) - but they eventually, after twenty minutes, make it back to the vehicle. Neil sits as upright as he can, though without a seatbelt, as they move at a snail’s pace (at least compared to Andrew’s usual driving style) back to campus.

He’s once again carried and when they reach their floor, are met with many of the Foxes waiting in the hallway for him.

“Oh my God Neil, are you okay?” Dan asks the second she lays eyes on him. He opens his mouth to insist that he’s fine, but he realizes that he isn’t 100% sure that Andrew wouldn’t drop him for it.

“I… will be”, he says lamely. 

“Here, put him down on the couch in here”, Matt says, gesturing toward the girls’ open door. He doesn’t take his eyes off Neil once, and Neil looks back at him unwaveringly. Something like relief floods through him as he realizes that he’s made it back, in one piece (one banged-up piece, but he’s got all his parts), and that he’s surrounded by friends and trusteds once more. 

Allison sits curled up in an armchair, a large cup of tea held between her palms. She looks up from its steaming surface to make eye contact with Neil. She’s got some bruising on her cheekbone and near her temple, but it’s no more prominent than the angry set of her jaw and the fire in her eyes. “I will kill all of them”, she vows. Neil isn’t sure that she won’t, given the chance.

Stepping out of the kitchen is Abby, Wymack not far behind, and she immediately begins ordering them around, getting one to grab a bowl of water and towel and another to get her kit, disinfectant, ‘something with sugar in it’, and a blanket. Andrew places Neil down on the couch so gently and with so intent a look that Neil struggles to think of anything else for a few seconds, but then Abby’s shooing them out of the room and Neil grabs for Andrew’s hand, wanting him to stay. Wymack hesitates but Neil doesn’t look at him, hoping he gets the hint.

When the door shuts behind them (and Neil feels a little bad for forcing Allison out of her own dorm after what she’s been through, but she didn’t even look bothered), and Abby’s gotten some orange juice into him (that does help him feel better) Neil struggles out of his shirt and falls back onto the cushions, glad that he wore his usual shorts so that all injured parts of his legs are exposed, because he really doesn’t feel like being pantless around Abby and Andrew would feel secondhand discomfort even though he wouldn’t admit it.

Abby begins by carefully wiping the blood from his face, knees, and various other spots where he’s gained cuts in mysterious ways. Andrew watches with a bit too much intensity in his gaze, and Neil knows that Andrew won’t forget the look of a single wound for the rest of his life so he wonders why Andrew is making it so easy for his brain to catalogue. Then again, perhaps his conspiracy theory that Andrew has a detailed mental list of grudges and slights is correct and he’s simply gathering intel for it.

A slightly-too-painful examination later, Abby concludes that his ribs are bruised, not broken nor fractured, and that his ankle should be fine given that he doesn’t walk on it. “You’ll need some weeks to recover”, she finishes.

“Weeks?” Neil asks, as if he hasn’t sustained these exact injuries on several occasions previously and is unfamiliar with the recovery period rather than in denial of it.

Abby nods. “You’re obviously not playing tonight, and luckily for you there’s no game next week to be missed, but you’re not playing the one after, either. At least.”

With that, she leaves, and Neil pouts until Andrew snaps at him.

***

He might not be playing, but Neil’s at least allowed to sit on the benches right by the court, alongside several teammates waiting to swap in. He hasn’t sat on this bench often, given he played full games for most of the first season, but it’s got a good view of the court and isn’t right behind the goal so he has a clear view of Andrew which is the most important part.

Not just because it’s Andrew and ‘staring’ is, apparently, Neil’s standard setting when it comes to the man, but because  _ Andrew has locked down the goal _ .

“Holy shit”, Matt breathes after the Jackals’ sixtieth (sixtieth? Neil thinks it’s the sixtieth) attempt to score.  _ Attempt _ , specifically, because they failed. Just like every other time.

Neil is feeling something awfully close to the l-word. 

He’s also feeling something like concern, because it’s becoming harder and harder to fathom how Andrew is still on his feet with how ferociously he’s playing. So are the rest of the Foxes, actually, letting anger, pure, white-hot  _ rage _ , fuel them beyond even the finals game against the Ravens. The Jackals have nothing on the Ravens, and the Foxes beat  _ them  _ \- now, with the same protectiveness and motivation, they’re tearing the opposing team to pieces.

The crowd is going wild. The Foxes’ fans have been screaming their throats out for every goal the Jackals fail to make since perhaps the twentieth time around, when they realized what’s going on, and the energy is heady and ecstatic. Neil feels caught up in it, not thinking of this morning, not thinking of the physical aches, feeling an unparalleled excitement in the arena.

When the game ends 14-0 Foxes’ favor, Neil can’t believe it. Neither can any of the Foxes, who stop and stare at the scoreboard as if they weren’t fully aware of the score this entire time, as if they’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did. They gather in a circle in the middle of the court, probably would be jumping up and down and rejoicing if they had a single usable muscle left in their body, but Neil only has eyes for Andrew. The man lets the racquet fall out of his hands, doesn’t pick it up, doesn’t move. 

Neil knows he’s overworked himself. Neil told him to be careful during half-time, to not push too far. Andrew didn’t listen, just like Neil never does.

When they go to shake hands, the Jackals can’t seem to believe it either. They move robotically, shell-shocked expressions and tense shoulders - angry grimaces on some faces. Andrew’s already planted himself by the court door and stands there, unmoving, until someone opens it for him.

“You blew your arms out, didn’t you”, Neil says when Andrew falls down onto the bench next to him. Andrew ignores him, takes deep breaths.

“Holy shit, dude!” Matt calls out. “You - and they - holy  _ shit _ , dude!”

The others echo similar sentiments when they join them. Wymack stares at Andrew like he’s never seen him before.

“Celebrations tomorrow. Not - now”, Aaron mumbles, leaning back against the changing room wall. Even he went the extra mile today and Neil is grateful because even if he hadn’t, Andrew would’ve still tried to lock the goal down, and who knows if he would’ve lasted the whole game then.

As it is, Andrew sits silently on the benches until the rest of the Foxes have completely finished changing and showering, heading to the lounge to wait. “Need help?” Neil asks.

“Can you even?” Andrew mutters. Neil, who’s sitting next to the crutch he’s been using to move around, shrugs.

“I’ll try if you want me to.”

“... Yes.”

It’s probably not the best shower Andrew’s ever had, given that he can barely raise his arms, but he gets through it, and Neil waits patiently until -  _ ping _ !

His phone is barely hanging on but it seems it still works. When Neil pulls it out of his bag and opens the notification, he freezes for a mere few seconds.

**Unknown number: We have dealt with the threats.**

When he shows Andrew, all he does is offer a barely-there smirk and an “at least those mafia fucks are good for something.”

And when, the next day, the news of the Foxes’ resounding victory shares the attention with a report that four of the Breckenridge Jackals will be leaving their team, his teammates don’t have any complaints.


End file.
